Living Your Passions
For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end-it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. (Habakkuk 2:3)
Living your passion is not as easy as it sounds. First, recognizing your passion can be challenging. What seems exciting or stimulating at one point in life becomes little more than an obligation at a different moment. Second, your passion may not be financially lucrative, so you need to make decisions by determining the level of commitment to a specific passion based on other life commitments and desires. For example, you have a passion for sculpture and raising three children, and the opportunities to provide for your children’s needs are high risk as a full-time sculptor. However, fulfilling your passion does not necessarily require full-time employment.
In “Do What’s Most Important,” Dan Pedersen challenges us not to be so focused on doing our passion 24/7 that we fail to appreciate the present. Instead, Pedersen challenges us with the question, “What are the things in your life that are most important to you right now?” We often idealize what we enjoy, believing that the future would be much better if we could do it full-time. Unfortunately, too often, when the passion changes from hobby to career, the motivation changes, and the passion wanes.
Still, other times, a passion can be worth the risk. When your passion becomes a divine call, you should reconsider the risk. Pedersen recommends, “To whatever extent you can choose your lifestyle, choose it.” “Do whatever you can in your power to devote your time to those things.” Pedersen recommends we move forward without fear of failure. Moving forward without fear is a good recommendation if one passion does not adversely interact with another. Like the children and sculpture career examples, negotiation, compromise, and sacrifice are all tools for finding the best alternative. The greatest passion is pleasing God and feeling satisfied with fulfilling meaningful responsibilities.
Today, invite God into your process for determining how to live your passions. Instead of succumbing to all-or-nothing thinking, prayerfully consider your many desires and set your priorities. Do not separate personal passions and professional ones. Each day only has 24 hours, and your personal and professional passions will always compete. Own the competition and embrace the personal/professional complications so you can be your best self personally and professionally. Think holistically, knowing that all of life is compromised. We will never fulfill everything we desire, but when we reflect and trust the Spirit’s leading, the passions will come into focus, and the compromises will feel like the best decision. Then, your desires will meld into one life passion that allows you to live joyously in the moment.